


Withdrawal and Recovery I

by Fenix21



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s04e16 On the Head of a Pin, Gen, caretaker!sam, demon blood withdrawal, episode coda, hurt!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 14:05:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6858052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Dean had slept through Christmas and New Years in the hospital. Not that either of them were in the mood for celebrating anything, least of all a holiday. Apparently, it was beyond an angel's grace to put right what had been torn asunder by a demon the likes and power of Alistair.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Withdrawal and Recovery I

**Author's Note:**

> I was watching _On the Head of a Pin_ the other night and thinking that they never addressed Dean's recovery from Alistair's beating at all, and I was very dissatisfied with that oversight, and so.

Dean had slept through Christmas and New Years in the hospital. Not that either of them were in the mood for celebrating anything, least of all a holiday. Apparently, it was beyond an angel's grace to put right what had been torn asunder by a demon the likes and power of Alastair. Or so Cas said. Sam still believed he was lying. To what end he couldn't guess, but either way, all the angel could bring to the table was to pull Dean back from the brink and tend to the worst of the internal organ damage. 

It was a solid two weeks before Sam dared check his brother out and point them westward toward South Dakota. Dean slept most of the way, or feigned sleep, curled so tightly in on himself, Sam was sure he'd never seen his brother look so small. 

The snow was flying and Sam was itching inside his skin by the time they made Sioux Falls. He'd dosed himself so high on Ruby's blood to take on Alastair that it was taking a while for the withdrawal to set in, but it did eventually, and all Sam could do was try and patch and cover it with enough coffee to keep Starbucks' first quarter earnings in the black single-handedly.

Because Sam had made himself a promise, sitting by Dean's hospital bed, that there would be no more blood. Not until Dean was healed and on his feet again, and not after either, if there was any way Sam could find around it. It was hollow and belated and probably pointless, but it was his way of putting Dean first, before his own needs. Not that Dean would appreciate it. Sam had a feeling that ship had already sailed. It didn't stop him from trying, though. Call him an incurable optimist. Something essential between him and Dean was frayed and breaking, and put a a lump in Sam's stomach that made him sicker than any lack of demon blood ever could. 

Six months ago, Sam had been sure of his path with Ruby, more so maybe because it looked like he wouldn't make it past the end, which was okay with him because what the hell was it all worth without his brother anyway? He'd been through that song and dance already, and he knew the outcome. But then Dean had come back, and little by little Sam's certainty had crumbled under his brother's scrutiny, and he began to do that most dangerous thing again...hope. Hope that there was an end to this for both of them that wasn't bloody and plated up on a pyre of salt and kerosene.

It was near midnight, and just ahead of a bad front according to the radio, when Sam pulled into Singer Salvage. Dean gave a small, fitful moan when Sam killed the ignition and the rumble of the engine died away in the dark. Bobby was waiting on the porch, hands stuffed in his jeans pockets against the cold, and came down the stairs to greet Sam as he unfolded himself from the driver's seat. 

'Look like hell, boy,' Bobby said. He bent over to peer in the driver's window at Dean who was slowly rousing himself toward wakefulness on the other side of the seat. 'So does he.'

He clapped Sam on the shoulder and Sam started, nerves raw and jittery from too much coffee and not enough food coupled with demon blood withdrawal. Bobby eyed him with concern but didn't press.

'Good to see you, nonetheless,' he said. 'Let's get your brother inside.'

Sam nodded, relieved, grabbed their duffles from the trunk and went to Dean's door, pulling it open slowly so as not to upset his brother's balance from where he was propped against it. He bent down.

'We're here, Dean,' he said unnecessarily.

Dean leaned away a little, and Sam told himself he was only trying to escape the shock of cold air, but the lump in his gut doubled in weight, and Sam knew that was a lie. He offered his hand anyway and Dean reluctantly took it to help lever himself out of the seat. The moment he was on his feet, he sidestepped to lean heavily on the Impala and catch his breath, winded even by that little exertion.

If Bobby noticed, again he said nothing and only stepped forward to slip an arm around Dean's waist, 'C'mon, son,' he coaxed and slowly helped him up the stairs and inside.

Sam pulled in a bracing lungful of cold air and fisted the straps of their duffles all the tighter to stop his hands shaking, then slowly followed them inside.

***

It seemed pointless to make Dean traverse the steep, pokey staircase, and the doctors had warned of pneumonia and not to let him stay horizontal for too long at a time, so Bobby unearthed a pile of quilts from Karen's hope chest, and they settled Dean in the recliner in the library. He was out like a light before Sam had even finished unlacing his boots for him. Sam shed his own coat and boots and dropped onto the lumpy, sagging threadbare couch. Bobby watched him, curious and quiet, from the doorway and finally said,

'You need anything, son? Drink maybe, to take the edge off?'

Sam shook his head and pulled his hands down his face. He hadn't realized just how much a part of keeping him on his feet the adrenaline was playing until it started to dissipate rapidly as he sat there. The shakes were setting in, in earnest, and his stomach was a hard, clenching knot under his ribs. Alcohol wasn't going to help him. It wasn't what he needed.

'No,' he managed in answer. 'But thanks.'

Bobby nodded. 'He'll pull through, ya know,' he said quietly.

'Yeah,' Sam replied, voice rough with sudden tears. 'Yeah, he always does.' 

Bobby nodded again in agreement and pushed off the wall. 'Get some sleep, Sam. I'll see ya in the mornin'.'

'G'night, Bobby.'

Sam tipped sideways on the coach, pulled the quilt up under his arms, and settled in to watch his brother breathe in the dark.

***

In the black hours before dawn, Sam still lay awake, despite his exhaustion, listening to the wind whistle through the towers of scrap metal out in the yard and thinking how pissy Dean was going to be in the morning when the Impala was blanketed in six inches of fresh snow because they hadn't pulled her under cover. Sam would take his brother's cranky bitching though, happily. Anything was preferable to the defeated, empty silence of the last weeks.

Sam wasn't sure what Cas had said to Dean, but if his brother had any fight left in him after confronting Alastair, the angel's words had knocked it right out of him. Dean had spoken barely a handful of words since he'd woken in the hospital, all but ignoring Sam's attempts at any kind of conversation and limiting himself to one word answers when possible whenever a question was addressed directly to him.

Sam shifted and shivered violently under his quilt, clammy now from the low grade fever starting to burn through him. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus on something other than the deep ache in his bones and cramps in his muscles. He felt his phone digging into his hip and pried it out of his pocket, stared at the dark screen long and hard, thumb hovering. She wouldn't make it past the front gate of Bobby's scrap yard. He'd have to go out and meet her, and what excuse could he possibly give that Dean wouldn't suspect? Besides, he'd promised he wouldn't, and he was stronger than this, damn it!

He thrust his head back against the arm of the couch and stared blindly at the ceiling, trying to block out Ruby's crooning voice in this head,

_It's all right. Sam. It's all right._

She had said it as she petted his head like some obedient lap dog and cradled him close to her breast while he drank from her, needy and voracious, some small part of himself disgusted by his own actions but unable to stop as the power began to wash through his veins and stoke in his blood.

_It's all right, Sammy._

He couldn't remember exactly when her whispered assurances had become more comforting than his brother's to his ears. He threw his phone to the foot of the couch and choked back a groan of despair, swiped at his damp eyes with the back of his hand, and curled into himself beneath the quilts, turning to face Dean still sprawled in the recliner.

He closed his eyes again and tried to will himself to sleep.

A few minutes later, he heard the creak of metal joints and the scrape of denim on the heavy canvas fabric of Bobby's recliner as Dean shifted his weight and then there was a hand sifting into his hair, familiar calloused fingertips scitching lightly at his scalp. His eyes popped open and he froze, breath lodged in his throat.

'Get some shut eye, Sammy,' Dean said, voice rusty and unmodulated with disuse. 'Whatever devil's ridin' you, it'll still be there in the mornin'.'

Sam said nothing, biting his lip fiercely against the stinging onslaught of hot tears. He pushed into Dean's hand, turning his face into the couch cushion, and Dean obliged him by scratching deeper into his hair to the nape of his neck. It only lasted a minute before Dean's fingers stilled, and he was asleep and snoring softly again. But his hand stayed securely tucked in Sam's hair, and when Sam closed his eyes a final time, the dark seemed suddenly a little less treacherous, and there was no more seductive voice on the other side of his eyelids. His fierce shaking calmed to a more tolerable trembling, and he could finally feel the blessedly mindless, empty weight of sleep slowly steal over him.


End file.
